The Third Gate

23

“This was three nights ago,” Logan said to the young man operating the airboat.

The man-his name was Hirshveldt-nodded. “It was dusk. I was on the catwalk outside Green, checking the methane-conversion feeder ducts. I dropped a wrench. When I bent down to pick it up, I looked out over the swamp. And I saw… her.”

They were perhaps a quarter mile out from the Station, heading northeast at a painful crawl over the skeletal vegetation of the Sudd. It was a bizarre, arduous trip through several elements-mud, water, bracken, air-as the airboat forced its way through an otherworldly tangle. One minute, they were wallowing in viscous black mud that seemed to suck the vessel downward; the next, they were taking small, jarring leaps over knots of clotted reeds, dead stumps, water hyacinth, and long, whiplike grass. It was dusk, and a smoky sun was setting into the marshland behind them.

Hirshveldt brought the airboat to a shuddering halt. He looked around, glanced back toward the Station. “It was more or less here.”

Logan nodded, looking at him. He’d read up on Hirshveldt. Machinist Second, he’d been on three prior expeditions with Porter Stone. His expertise was in fixing and running complex mechanical systems of all kinds, with particular emphasis on diesel engines. His psych profile-Stone ran profiles on all prospective employees-showed a very low coefficient of divergent thinking and disinhibition.

In other words, Hirshveldt was probably the last person one would expect to start seeing things.

Now that they had stopped moving, legions of mosquitoes and other biting insects began hovering around them in increasing numbers. The smell of the Sudd-a raw, earthy, putrescent stench-was inescapable. Opening his duffel, Logan slipped out his digital camera, adjusted the settings manually, and took several shots of the vicinity. This was followed by a slow pan with a video camera. Returning these to his bag, he brought out a half-dozen test tubes, took samples of the mud and vegetation, then stoppered the tubes and put them aside. Finally, he pulled a small handheld device from the duffel. It sported a digital readout, an analogue knob, and two toggle switches. Stepping carefully into the bow of the airboat, Logan switched it on, then adjusted the knob, sweeping the device slowly in an arc ahead of him.

“What’s that?” Hirshveldt asked, his professional curiosity aroused.

“Air ion counter.” Logan examined the display, adjusted the knob again, did a second sweep. He’d done a basal reading back on the Station before getting into the airboat. The air here was more ionized, but not significantly enough to be alarming-approximately five hundred ions per cubic centimeter. He pulled a notebook from his pocket, made a notation, then replaced the ion counter in his bag.

He turned to Hirshveldt. “Can you describe what you saw, please? I’d appreciate as much detail as possible.”

Hirshveldt paused, obviously combing his memory. “She was tall. Thin. Walking slowly, right about here, over the surface of the swamp.”

Logan looked out over the labyrinthine tangle of vegetation. “While walking, did she stumble or slip?”

The machinist shook his head. “It wasn’t normal walking.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it was slow, really slow-as if she was in a trance, maybe, or sleepwalking.”

Logan wrote in his notebook. “Go on.”

“There was this faint blue glow around her.”

Glow-the glow of sunset, the glow of imagination, or the glow of an aura? “Describe it, please. Was it steady, like incandescent light, or did it waver like the aurora borealis?”

Hirshveldt slapped away a mosquito. “It wavered. But that was slow, too.” A pause. “She was young.”

“How do you know?”

“She moved like a young person moves. Not like an old woman.”

“Skin color?”

“The glow made it hard to tell. It was pretty dark out, anyway.”

Logan made more notations. “Can you describe what she was wearing?”

A pause. “A dress. High-waisted, almost translucent. A long ribbon was tied around her waist and trailed down past her knees. Over it was a-a triangular kind of thing that hung down around her shoulders. Same material, I think.”

Egyptian shawl cape, Logan thought as he made notes. The garb of nobility, or perhaps of a priestess. Like the one Tina Romero claimed had gone missing from her office. He’d asked her about it; she told him she planned to wear it to the celebratory closing party Stone always held at the end of a successful expedition. “Would you recognize her if you saw her again?” he asked.

Hirshveldt shook his head. “It was too dark. Anyway, the thing on her head made it hard to see her face. Even when she looked at me.”

Logan stopped in midnotation. “She looked at you?”

The machinist nodded.

“ At you? Or just in the direction of the Station?”

“As I stared, she stopped walking. Then-just as slowly-she turned her head. I could see the glow of her eyes in the dark.”

“You said she had a thing on her head. What did it look like?”

“It looked like… the body of a bird. A feathered bird with a long beak. It covered her head like a hat. The wings came down on both sides, over her ears.”

A Horus falcon, mantling. Priestess, without a doubt. Logan made a final note, then slipped the notebook into the duffel bag. “When she looked at you, did you get any kind of feeling or sensation?”

Hirshveldt frowned. “Sensation?”

“You know. Like, a welcome? An acknowledgment?”

“Funny you should mention that. When I first saw her out there in the swamp, she seemed… well, sad, almost. But then she turned to look at me and I felt something else.”

“Yes?” Logan urged.

“I felt anger. Real anger.” Another pause. “I don’t know why I felt that. But a funny feeling came over me then. My mouth went all dry, like I couldn’t swallow. I looked away a minute, wiped the sweat from my eyes. When I looked back-she was gone.”

Logan thought back to the curse of Narmer. His tongue will cleave to his throat. Looking around in the gathering dark, he felt his skin prickle. It was back again: that evil he’d felt so strongly when the generator caught fire. It was almost like a physical presence, whispering to him malevolently over the drone of insects.

He turned back to Hirshveldt. “I think it’s time for us to get back to the Station. Thanks for your time.”

“You bet.” The machinist seemed just as eager to leave the swamp. He fired up the airboat and they made their way painfully back toward the welcoming lights.